During his talk Tuesday night at the Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, he shared some of the more intimate stories of his profession - the ones everyone wanted to hear.

Hosted by Paul McEwan, professor of media and film studies at Muhlenberg College, the talk started with a joke from Fricke as the projector was booting up.

"Springsteen's sound checks are about four hours," he says "We did about 30 seconds." The comment was only a precursor to the stories that would be told throughout the two-hour discussion.

The slide show behind the two began with a photo of Pink Floyd, which was in fact the first concert Fricke ever attended. He says this interaction was monumental for him.

"My future was written in some way," he says.

This draw to live music manifested into an obsession of forming a career centered around his passion.

"When I discovered people who wrote about it - it fascinated me," he says.

The night continued with stories of attending Woodstock merely as a fan, Fricke showing up on the stage at Live Aid (refusing to leave after his allotted backstage time for press) and monumental interviews he remembers.

He commented on the infamous photo from Woodstock of a couple hugging, wrapped in a quilt. He joked that he had probably left by the time the photo was taken.

"I had a job at a drugstore," he says as he turned to look at the photo projected on the wall behind him. This led to other discussions around some of the iconic photographs that have helped define the world of rock. also included in the Allentown exhibit.

"You can look at an image and fall into it," he says.

But he says the words and stories around the images are also necessary because you don't always know context around which the photo was taken and what was going on in the background.

"That's what I'm lucky enough to do," he says of the writing.

He spoke of his adventures at Muhlenberg College and when he first arrived on campus in 1969. He says the latest Playboy Magazine college survey had just been released and credited the school as being "out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do."

To the backdrop of a picture of Fricke helping to mount a radio tour on the roof of the WMUH studios at Muhlenberg, where he also was a DJ, Fricke spoke of the opportunities Muhlenburg afforded him and how the experiences he had there caused him to hit the pavement in search of a career in music journalism right after graduation.

Discussions evolved to shows at CBGB's that he attended after moving to New York City where he roomed with the now infamous MTV news guy and author Kurt Loder.

Photo Courtesy Allentown Art MuseumDavid Fricke discusses his experiences with the band AC/DC.

He spoke of AC/DC shows and seeing Angus repeatedly have to replenish his oxygen levels at a tank side-stage during his energetic performances and losing $60 to the guys in an impromptu poker match.

Speaking to Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck in an exclusive joint interview; getting first-hand information from Michael Stipe in his Rolling Stone offices that R.E.M. was finished; and searching for late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence on Harlem streets after the singer called his hotel room and told him he was lost.

A story of the night that aired on the darker side was one he told about his interview with Kurt Cobain, one of the final ones Cobain did before the singer passed away.

In October 1993 he asked Cobain about the song, "I Hate Myself and Want to Die." His answer, six months prior to his suicide, was not one that many would expect. The singer said it wasn't meant to be taken literally and he hadn't been happier.

"I believe when he said he hadn't been happier at that moment he believed it," Fricke says.

But his stories were all in context - professional but real, because in the end, he was where he needed to be to do a job.

"It's not just hanging out and getting a piece of the action," he says.

Following up on the moderator's question on whether or not he felt he had formed friendships with the musicians he has spent years profiling, he joked about what the word friend actually means.

"Friend is a kind of weird word because in some ways it has been devalued," he says, following with a specific example of the noun being used as a verb when speaking of Facebook.

He credits his ability to ask the right questions, to be informed and to have intent that is true to the music with being able to break the mold for many of his stories.

"If I'm there and giving that work, they'll give it back," he says.

When asked by an audience member whether he preferred vinyl, CDs or MP3s when listening to music, he admitted he has use for all three, but live music overrides them all.